Date: 1905
Source: Lenin Anthology, vol. 26
Pages: 261-264

NOTE. ON TWO ARTICLES FROM THE ENGLISH JOURNAL 
"THE ECONOMIST".
NB
The Economist
21/1 [1905] — Russian budget ("mystification and deception" *) 
4/11 — Note on "Decline of the Russian trade"®
Both would have been suitable for a note
1 
The article "The Russian budget," dwelling in detail on the draft state budget of the Russian Minister of Finance Kokovtsev, exposes the fraudulent machinations of the state treasury, especially in connection with the financial difficulties brought about by the war with Japan, which was unsuccessful for Russia. The words "mystification and deception" are taken from the article. The author mocks the Minister's attempts to cite the existence of "free treasury resources."

On the polemic between The Times and Kokovtsev on the same subject, see Lenin's article "European Capital and Autocracy" (Works, vol. VII, 175—180).
* 
The exact title of the article is "The decline in Russian trade."

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EXTRACTS FROM "LE TEMPS" ON THE TORTURE OF REVOLUTIONARIES 
BY THE RUSSIAN POLICE.

[February 1905]

In the conservative French newspaper Le Temps, which is entirely sympathetic to Russia and stands on the side of autocracy, there appeared on 10 February (28 January) a letter from this newspaper's special Petersburg correspondent dated 4 February (22 January) under the heading:

"By What Means Did the Russian Police Extract Information About the Conspiracy from the Lips of the Conspirators Themselves" *.

The correspondent recounts his conversation with a Russian, a man of liberal profession and liberal views. The correspondent had already conversed sufficiently with former ministers, senators, and generals. He wanted to learn the opinion of an "ordinary mortal," who has no general's rank and probably never will obtain it. The interlocutor gave the impression of being a deeply sincere man, and here is what he related:

"Our police are neither skillful nor intelligent. They see conspiracies everywhere because it is advantageous to them to uncover them, and they seek them out everywhere on the pretext of all sorts of events. In your France everything ends with songs; with us everything ends with the discovery of a conspiracy. All around us are positively teeming with revolutionaries who are hatching conspiracies, and the police see instigators of sedition everywhere. [You will see that] it will be useful for you to learn how they uncovered this latest conspiracy (with the help of the notorious Anglo-Japanese money). You will see that uncovering this conspiracy did not even require the science of some Sherlock Holmes *, and you perhaps will not believe me. In France you believe only in stories that are very complicated and very strange. Once a fact lies before you that is simple and tangible (brutal) as a blow from a cudgel (coup de trique), you [are already] inclined to regard it with suspicion.

"You have surely been told more than once in the foreign press that corporal punishment has been abolished in Russia, that flogging does not exist. [The Tsar himself ordered it so.] And indeed, such was the Tsar's order. Unfortunately, in practice officials and gendarmes are all-powerful, and their primary concern is to replace the law with temporary [powers] regulations, which are renewed an infinite number of times. We have now been living for twenty-five years under a regime of reinforced security, never being certain that we will not have to spend the night in prison. True, for lack of space in the prisons, not everyone is taken, but they can always take anyone, and we are dependent on the arbitrary will of the police chief or governor. In the administrative order, officials can do everything that the law still forbids. Power intoxicates them as vodka intoxicates a man, and they become cruel. You like their good nature, their simple smile, their affable face. They seem to you to be good fellows. But... do not fall into their hands! These people, who seem so charming and who cross themselves so piously before the icons, will show you that the rod still exists.

"The wounded of January 9th were taken to various city hospitals. Among the wounded was a female student who was caught in the crowd and struck by a Cossack's saber. The blade wounded her on the chest and split her left breast (La lame l'atteignit à la poitrine et lui fendi le sein gauche). A few days ago a police officer came to the hospital to take this girl to the station. The doctor replied that she could not yet be discharged. The police officer came a second time after several days. The answer was the same, but the police officer would hear no arguments, and the girl, whose entire chest was still wrapped in bandages, had to get up and leave with him.

"Within twenty-four hours a Red Cross carriage brought her back to the hospital, but in such a condition that those who saw her were moved to tears (émus). She was paler than linen and unable to stand on her feet. She had lost weight terribly. Overall appearance like some corpse (On eût dit un cadavre). As they undressed her, she screamed. Her shoulders, back, [posterior] thighs (les reins) were covered with dark-blue welts (lignes bleuâtres) crisscrossing in various directions. The flesh, swollen on both sides of the welts (Les chairs boursouflées de chaque côté) formed thick folds of violet color (plis violets) a finger's thickness. She was placed on a bed on curds ("tvorok" ou lait caillé). A gendarme was stationed beside her, not leaving day or night.

"Despite this supervision, we learned what had happened. The terrible marks, in any case, indicated it all too clearly. At the station she was interrogated about the notorious conspiracy and about anarchistic machinations (menées). The police knew that she had acquaintances [among] revolutionaries. She refused to speak, declaring that she knew nothing. Then they began to beat her with rods (verges) on the shoulders and back, paying no attention to her wound. Then they interrogated her again. She again refused to speak. They began to flog her a second time on the buttocks (sur le bas des reins). In the end she told them everything they wanted.

"Do not think that this abominable (abominable) fact was an isolated occurrence. Over the course of several days rods were at work in the majority of police stations in the capital. Other wounded, suspected of belonging to revolutionary circles, were beaten. I was assured that one student from the Polytechnic was flogged so savagely that he was brought home in agony. Now the conspiracy has been completely uncovered...... The rods can be set aside after they have loosened all tongues. In addition, however, all doctors and all hospital personnel have been ordered not to say a word about either the wounds or the marks of blows (sur les blessures ni les plaies). And if they should think [to speak] to tell, it would cost them dearly (il leur en cuirait): rods have a twofold property; they make people speak and make people silent. The girl who was flogged will never receive a medical certificate [, which is] needed for filing a complaint. And when she returns home, the marks of torture will heal..."

I listened without saying a word to the storyteller, whose fists clenched (? les mains se crispaient) and whose eyes burned with a strange fire. He saw that I was not yet entirely [convinced] convinced. Then he pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and continued: "The police know not only how to flog; they also know how to distort facts. If I prove to you that they lie in their statements, you will not believe them when they deny flogging. All government statements reported that the number killed was 96. Even in France [respectable] esteemed newspapers vouched for the accuracy of this figure. But here is a fact: I personally visited 15 city hospitals under the pretext of searching for one of the [disappeared] missing relatives. I examined the corpses, counted them, and among them saw a deceased man in a black vest (veste) with a blue tie, in patent leather boots, without a head, [which had been] abandoned, obviously somewhere on Admiral's Square or on Nevsky. On this slip of paper I recorded the number of the dead. This number is 2195. And do not forget that Petersburg has only 46 hospitals in total, and I was in only fifteen!"

I took this slip of paper and read the following enumeration: Military hospital — 154 dead, Willay clinic — 59, Aleksandrovskaya hospital — 163, Obukhov — 197, Petropavlovskaya — 143, Surgical — 151, Troitskaya — 163, Mary Magdalene — 179, Maksimilianovsky — 138, St. Olga — 154, Exchange — 68, City male — 131, Mariinskaya — 223, Malokhtinskaya — 120, Zemstvo — 152. Total 2,195.

When I was about to return this slip of paper to my interlocutor, it turned out that he had already left, taking advantage of my moment of reflection.